'Yours sincerely,
'J. Brahms.'
When the Janssens settled at Kiel, Brahms wrote to ask Groth to call upon them, saying:
'... The lady is the daughter of my first pianoforte teacher Cossel of whom I must have told you. And when I began to speak of him I was certainly unable to leave off again....'
At the period we have now reached, Brahms had given up his solitary Christmas evenings. The home of Dr. and Mrs. Fellinger became every year more and more a substitute to him in some sort for that home of his own which he imagined, perhaps, with longing and regret till the last year of his life. Each Christmas Eve of his last seven winters found him amongst the Fellinger family group, rejoicing in the joy of the young people, stimulating their fun, happy in feeling himself truly one in the midst of a family circle whose greatest delight it was to know that their friend of friends liked to be amongst them. Frau Fellinger always contrived some charming practical joke in the matter of the Christmas presents prepared for the master, by which he was annually and unfailingly taken in. One year—the first Christmas he passed at the house—part of her own gift table, labelled with his name, was tastefully arranged with toilet accessories. In front of a burnished mirror two candlesticks stood, holding lighted candles; between these was a pincushion, on to which was pinned a black silk necktie; some parcels with pink paper wrappings, tied with ribbon and labelled 'Finest perfume,' lay near. The only uncovered articles were packets of writing-paper of the kinds most used by Brahms, supplied in sufficient quantities to last some time.
The usual general survey of the gift-laden tables took place, and Brahms evinced much sympathetic interest during the tour of inspection, but presently he walked silently away to the other end of the room, passing his hand over his beard, then sauntered back carelessly, only to retire again and pace about apart, the picture of quiet dismay. 'But won't you look at your things, Dr. Brahms?' inquired Frau Fellinger by-and-by, when her guest had summoned sufficient courage to mingle again with the party and admire the young people's presents, though he carefully avoided glancing at his own. Poor Brahms allowed himself to be led to the table, and stood mute and dazed before it. 'Ah! here is mine,' he cried, suddenly catching sight of the paper; 'this is for me!' 'But all is for you,' returned his hostess kindly but firmly. 'But these things are all for you,' said the master, pleading; 'they are not for me, they are yours.' 'But why, Dr. Brahms?' insisted the lady; 'pray look at your things; do you not like scent?' By little and little the master was persuaded to handle his presents, gingerly enough, it is true. And now ensued the transformation scene. Each dainty trifle turned into some useful article suited to Brahms' needs. The two candlesticks became cream-jugs, the pincushion a sugar-basin, the packets of perfume proved to be tablets of unscented soap. A bread-basket containing bundles of English quills such as Brahms always used for writing music, and a clothes-brush, stood in bare, attractive reality before his astonished eyes. Soon nothing remained but the mirror. 'But this really does belong to you,' he implored, still deceived. 'Look behind it,' said Frau Fellinger; and the mirror became a nickel coffee-tray, chosen because of its smooth, brilliantly-polished back, which had well served the Christmas Eve purpose. 'Now I really must sit down,' said Brahms, drawing a long breath, his kind face shining; and he insisted on carrying away all his things in a cab the same evening.
But though Brahms was persuaded, in the later years of his life, to join the family festivities of these kind friends, he kept up to the last his custom of showing himself at his landlady's Christmas Eve party. Frau Truxa used to light up her tree an hour or two earlier than formerly, so that he should feel quite happy in setting out for Dr. Fellinger's. Of course her two boys were always remembered by the master, and his gifts to them, generally books, were found punctually on the table at the hour appointed for the commencement of the festivity.
The publications of the year 1890 were the 'Fest und Gedenksprüche,' as Op. 109, and three Motets for four and eight part Chorus a capella, Op. 110.
The writer of these pages was present at a supper-party given in Vienna in January, 1890, after a concert of the Joachim Quartet, at which Brahms with Joachim and his colleagues were the chief guests. 'What shall we have next?' said Joachim to Brahms in the course of supper; 'a quintet; we have one, a very fine one; we will have another.' A second string quintet, with two violas, composed during the summer at Ischl, was the next work produced by Brahms, and was heard for the first time in public from the manuscript in Vienna at the Rosé Quartet concert of November 11 (Rosé, Bachrich, Hummer, Jenek, and Siebert). An anecdote which appears to the author worth preserving, as expressive of Brahms' appreciation of his friend's incomparable playing, may find a place here. At a period when the two men had not met for a couple of years an occasion came when Brahms heard Joachim play. 'Now,' he said afterwards to the lady who related the story to the author, 'now I know what it is that has been wanting in my life during the past two years. I felt something was missing, but could not tell what. It was the sound of Joachim's violin. How he plays!'
Brahms' Quintet in G major is, in the opinion of most competent judges, one of the most powerful and fascinating of his works of chamber music for strings. If there is, in one or two of his late compositions for pianoforte and other instruments, something that suggests the feeling that in this domain the elasticity of his imagination was approaching its limits, nothing of the sort can be said of either of the works for strings only, and the Quintet in G is certainly second to none of them in wealth of spontaneous melody, in vigour and variety of inventive power, in all, in short, that is included in the word 'vitality.' To the present writer it appears quite clear and easy to follow, but that there may be two impressions on this point is proved in a remarkable way by two letters written by Billroth, the first to Brahms himself after the work had been performed for the first time from the manuscript at a party at Billroth's house, the second a few months later to Hanslick.